Free skin cancer screenings Saturday: Good chance they detect it

Saturday is free skin cancer screening day in Houston, an annual event that helps you know if that worrisome mole is malignant while providing hospitals and dermatologists an influx of new patients.

The bad news is that the screenings catch a goodly number of skin cancers. The good news is that they’re almost always at the stage where they are easily treatable.

For example, the five-year survival rate for people whose melanoma is detected and treated before it spreads to the lymph nodes is 98 percent, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. The rate drops to 62 percent if the melanoma has spread to a regional lymph node and 15 percent if it has spread to a distant lymph node.

In 2010, more than 1,200 people attended the free screenings in the Houston area and nearly 300 skin cancers were detected, 12 of them melanomas. Hundreds had benign moles that nevertheless can increase the risk of getting cancer and hundreds had lesions that looked like they could be skin cancer but were harmless.

The Memorial Hermann Healthcare System referred a third of the free screening attendees for biopsies.

The hospitals participating in Saturday’s free screenings are listed below. Click on the hospitals for more information and phone numbers, but all take patients on a first-come, first-served basis and provide the service from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. except Memorial Hermann, where screenings are by appointment and hours vary.